


Nanny Ashtoreth's Loathsome Lullabies

by ModernWizard



Series: The Demon's Daughter [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley's lullaby, Defenestrating the kid, F/M, Gen, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Heck the witch, Heck the witch formerly known as Warlock, It was more of a vertical hand-off really, Lullabies, Nanny's early days as Heck's mom, Nanny's lullaby of desperation, Other, Queen is much better for lulling kids to sleep, Take Crowley's word on this, Taking the kid for late-night rides in the Bentley at 120 kph, Trans Warlock Dowling, heck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-24 01:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard
Summary: [In which Heck is 33, with a significant flashback to when she's under 6 months old.] Nanny Ashtoreth -- she's calm; she's cool; she's competent. She always knows just what to say and just what to do. She glides through life with a serpentine ease, never a hair out of place. She's the perfect perfectionist who has everything under control, right?Mmmmm, not so much. Here's a story about four times in her life when she was clueless, even [horror of horrors!] speechless. Read on to find out how our lady of inimitable aplomb handled herself in these times of crisis.[For those of you keeping track, Heck the witch, formerly known as Warlock, who has now adopted herself into Crowley and Aziraphale's family, is 33 in this story.]





	1. Nanny the Clueless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heck can't sleep before a momentous day of changes, so her Hellmom Crowley and her Angeldad Aziraphale regale her with stories of her early days. Neither of them had much idea of how to parent, and evidently _someone_ threw baby Heck out a window.

“I can’t sleep,” Heck announced the night before she was to cross the Atlantic and start up in Boston with a new apartment, a new partner, a new job — basically a whole new life. “I’m thirty-three fucking years old, and I’m still terrified of the unknown.”

“Well, that’s entirely understandable,” said Aziraphale. “You’re on the verge of a transoceanic move, cohabitation with a long-distance partner, a new place of employment, and the inauguration of a new epoch of your life! It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“It’s pants-shittingly scary is what it is. What if New England isn’t enough like England? What if I can’t stand Boston winters? What if it works out with Adriel? What if it doesn’t work out with Adriel? What if we break up and I have to move out and into my own place? How will I afford that on what I’m making? What if I’m bored at this job again? What if I’m in over my head? What if I’m fired again? What if — ?”

“Dang, child. You sound like me.” Crowley rolled his eyes and sighed gustily enough for both of them.

“Like mother, like daughter, I tell you.” Heck plopped into an overstuffed chair kitty-corner to him.

“Yikes. If I’d have known that thirty-three years ago, I would have stopped freaking out quite so much.” 

“Too late. You’re a freakout incarnate.”

“Erm, excuse me? I prefer the term  _ disaster queer,” _ said Crowley in a hoity-toity voice.

“Whatever,  _ Nanny.” _

“Hey! Do I look like Nanny to you? Do I?”

“Yes. That’s kind of the whole point, doofus. You change, but you don’t change that much.” Heck stuck her tongue out at her Hellmom.

“Sweetheart,” said Aziraphale, setting side his book, “I don’t need demonic powers to tell that you’re dealing with incredible anxiety.”

“Bleh bleh bleh!” Shaking his head, Crowley stuck out his tongue. It was very long and very forked. It unrolled past his chin, at least twice the expected human length. “Be glad you can’t sense it, angel,” he, who, as a demon, tasted negative emotions, said. “It’s like being socked in the nose and then eating gravel — all burny and tingly and gritty and — bleh!”

“How unpleasant! Do you want to talk to us, sweetheart, about what you’re feeling?” Aziraphale asked Heck. 

“Yeah.” Crowley perched on Heck’s arm rest and laid a hand on her shoulder. “All joking aside, child, you know we’re here to listen if you need us.”

“Uuuuuuggggh.” Heck squished herself down into her seat, rubbing her eyes. “I appreciate the offer. But it’s just the same old shit I’ve been freaking out about for the past six months. I just really want to sleep. I  _ need _ to sleep. My body’s tired, but my mind won’t stop hamster-wheeling.”

“Dear heart, perhaps some of your old techniques might help Heck relax,” Aziraphale suggested to Crowley.

“Huh?” Crowley tumbled inelegantly onto the couch next to Aziraphale. “My relaxation technique is to turn into a snake and give zero fucks about anything.”

“No, not your personal measures for achieving tranquility, my dear boy,” said Aziraphale, who sat so neatly that you could measure right angles between his torso and his thighs and his thighs and his calves. “I mean those for inducing it in others.”

“What tranquility? I cause one of three reactions, and you know it. A)  _ Aaaaaaah, a huge fucking snake! _ B)  _ Oh shit, Goth Mary Poppins is out to get me. _ C)  _ Excuse me, sir, but are you aware that your pelvis is attempting to unscrew itself from the base of your spine?” _

“When our daughter was little, you had quite the calming effect on her — eventually — after several false starts.” Aziraphale chuckled.

“Really? Because I distinctly remember sprinting to your rooms:  _ Francisssss! What do I do? The child has no OFF button or volume control, and none of the booksssss mentioned any of thissssss!” _ Popping his eyes, Crowley hissed in fake panic and stretched out both hands like he was holding baby Heck as far away from himself as possible.

“Books?” said Heck. She sensed a story or two on the horizon and welcomed any prospect to distract her from her useless worry. “You mean like  _ What to Expect When You’re Expecting the Antichrist? _ Or maybe  _ Raising Hell: A Step by Step Guide to Helping Your Little Hellion Achieve Their Full Potential as the Destroyer of Worlds?” _

“Those books would actually have been helpful. But nooooo!” Crowley elongated the word sardonically. “No one writes manuals for this shit. So there’s your poor Nanny, taking child development courses, volunteering in day care, and reading all about the latest in child care advice and human brain development. Yes, it’s true, kid.  _ I _ was reading  _ actual books,” _ said Crowley, who regularly told Aziraphale that books were too long and boring compared to plays and movies. “Don’t you ever say Anthony J. Crowley never did anything for you.” _ _

“Wait… You studied up?”

“Well, yeah, of course I did. Taking care of kids isn’t like taking care of plants, you know. For one thing, kids tend to move around more — although I used to have this very sneaky tenebraeum that  _ I swear _ was changing location behind my back.”

“Yes, that was because I was moving the pot,” Aziraphale put in.

_ “Why?” _ Crowley cried, shaking his head in grief at the ineffable spouse he had chosen to endure.

“To see if I could convince you that it was altering its position of its own volition. Apparently I succeeded!” Rubbing his hands together, Aziraphale wiggled his nose triumphantly. 

“You’re evil, angel,” said Crowley without venom — indeed, without any vigor at all. “Do you hear that? Evil.”

“I blame my devilish spouse,” said Aziraphale blandly. He returned to his book, but he couldn’t prevent a few more gleeful nose wiggles from appearing.

“Hang on. Let’s go back to the studying up,” said Heck. “Maybe this is silly, Mom, but I thought you always knew what you were doing when it came to kids.”

“Ah hah hah hah hah!” Crowley laughed so hard that he fell off the couch. “That’s a good one. Haven’t you figured out by now that I never know what I’m doing?” He flailed his arm in a general gesture and whacked the sofa’s wooden leg. “Ow! It’s fifty percent improvisation, fifty percent perspiration — “

“Twenty percent dramatization, ten percent objurgation,” Aziraphale continued, not looking up, “and five percent defenestration.”

“Where did those come in?” Heck asked, snickering.

Aziraphale smirked as he stroked his chin in thought. “Let’s see — there was a lot of roleplaying certain scenarios that he thought he might encounter, then yelling at the educational materials because they failed to provide adequate guidance for all contingencies, followed by threats to launch all offending information out of the window. The only thing that she ever actually defenestrated, however, was you when you were six months old.”

“That’s not what happened, and you know it,” Crowley interrupted. His intimidating stare was mitigated by his prone position and the general disorganization of his limbs, which made him look like a very long and scrawny puppet that had been knocked from a shelf.

“Is that true?” Heck rounded on her Hellmom.

“Wellllll, no. Not as such, I mean.”

“Did you or did you not throw me out a window when I was six months old?”

“She did,” Aziraphale butted in.  _ (She, _ of course, referred to Nanny, who Crowley was at the time and who therefore would have been throwing.)

“It was a less of a toss and more of a vertical hand-off!” protested Crowley. Under Heck’s dubious glare, he flung his hands in the air. “How else was I supposed to get you  _ and _ the pram  _ and _ all your equipment down the stairs in one go? I just passed you to Francis and hauled all the gear down myself.”

“Did you just forget you had magic or something?” Heck snorted.

“Um...maybe. It was only from the first story, though. It was perfectly safe, and you loved it!”

“So did the rest of the household staff,” murmured Aziraphale, turning a page. “I heard them placing wagers on, and I quote,  _ when that Goth weirdo’s getting sacked.” _

“And not a single one of your maternal instincts was telling you that it was probably a bad idea to defenestrate a baby?”

“Maternal instincts! Hah!” Crowley, who had gotten back onto the sofa, fell out again with another laugh. “Don’t give me that rot. Ow, my ass.” He rubbed it. “Okay, so I’m not that bad with kids. That doesn’t mean I automatically know how to be a mother, though. In fact, I didn’t — hence the crash course. I wanted to make sure I was doing things right because this was...well…” Hands pinwheeling in the air, looking for words. “The most important thing out of all the things that I’d ever...thinged.”

“Mom! That’s adorable. That’s...really sweet, actually. I’d give you a hug, but you’re flat on your back,” said Heck. Crowley picked himself up off the floor with a movement somehow like the reverse of pouring water, wedged himself next to Heck in her chair, and hugged her. She hugged him back. “But still...I can’t believe that my very own Nanny lobbed me out a window,” she said, pulling away. 

“I can’t believe you’d think so badly of your own mother.” Crowley pouted.

“What other youthful parental indiscretions have you two been keeping from me?” Heck glanced speculatively at her parents.


	2. Nanny the Desperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanny used to sing lullabies to her little hellspawn. Some of them were excruciatingly bad. Some of them were Queen.

“Your mother used to sing to you,” offered Aziraphale with a smile that suggested he might burst into laughter at any second. With a sidelong look at Crowley, he added, “That’s what I was hoping he would remember.”

“Did I?” Crowley scratched his head, narrowly missed hitting Heck with his elbow, and moved back to the couch where there was more room to flail around. 

“Oh my gods! You made up songs for me? And you sang them?” Heck clasped her hands together. “Wait a minute. Does that mean that you did like you do when you’re you — you know, with the acting everything out and making faces and doing that slithery writhing thing?”

“What are you talking about? I’m always me.” Crowley made a silly face of confusion, snarling his lips and nearly crossing his eyes. In the space of seconds, he had progressed from a normal sitting position to a harmoniously undulant series of curves, distributed casually across most of the sofa’s length. (By contrast, Aziraphale still remained ensconced in geometrical alignment.) “Of course, I’m not always the same shape or species, but I’m always me.”

“Hm.” Marking his place in his book with a finger, Aziraphale looked at Crowley for a second. “As much as I love you in any form, my dear boy, my dear lady, _ and _ my ineffably silly snake,” he remarked, “I don’t see how I myself could manage more than one self, to say nothing of three. The intricacies of the administration — all the delegation and organization — must be immense. My goodness!”

“What intricacies?” Crowley shrugged. “Do I look like I’m administrating anything?”

“No,” said Aziraphale with an arch look over his reading glasses, “and that explains so much.” In response, Crowley blew a rather hissy raspberry at Aziraphale that quickly turned into a flood of invisible kisses winging their way toward him.

Heck giggled. “No...I mean — were you, Nanny, doing what you, Crowley, do when you sing? Because I’m trying to imagine Nanny unscrewing her pelvis, and my brain is erroring out.”

“Well then, that should be a very good indication, child, that you shouldn’t sully your mind with such...la vicious...la shivvy...la-skivvy-us images,” Crowley snapped. Suddenly sitting up straight and neat, he captured much of Nanny’s crisp exactitude, if not her pronunciation. “I don’t move like that because...um...something something something, my delicate ladylike sensibilities. Hmph.”

“Las_ civ _ious,” Heck interjected. “Lascivious images.”

“Don’t get any of those in your head either!” Crowley shook his finger at her.

“Delicacy!” Aziraphale suppressed a laugh into his fist. “Sensibility!” He did so again. “I’m so very sorry to tell you, dear heart,” he said to Crowley, “but you have neither the former nor the latter — only a tough and obdurate obtuseness.”

“Why thank you, angel,” said Crowley with an acknowledging nod.

Aziraphale’s smirk grew sharp and mischievous. “Would you like to hear your mother’s first composition, Heck?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Heck cheered.

“Let me contextualize this greatest of musical accomplishments for you then,” Aziraphale went on. “One night, when you were about four months old, I was sleeping peacefully. Suddenly, with an almighty crash, my bedroom door flew open, ricocheting off the wall. For a moment, a figure of imposing height, clad all in black, loomed in the doorway, outlined with light from the hall. The figure’s hair swirled loosely around their head, seething like stirred-up snakes.”

“Oi! My hair did not do that!” Crowley patted his hair, which was half pulled back from his face into a ponytail. “My hair never does that!” He gave his head another prod, but his hair remained still and obedient to gravity. “ —Does it?”

“Relax, my dear boy.” Aziraphale patted Crowley’s head. “It’s called poetic license.”

Crowley ducked away from Aziraphale. “Yeah, well, I’m taking away your license. You’re making me sound like a mess.”

“Ahem. Apparently the literary censors,” said Aziraphale, cocking his head at Crowley, “and I disagree on the proper use of exaggeration for dramatic effect. I will have to revise the beginning of my tale. To resume — the figure’s hair, coiled in serpentine locks, gleamed as red as the infernos of Hell. —Does that meet your approval, dear heart?”

“I’ll allow it. Continue.”

“Their eyes shone as yellow as candle flames, glimmering with unshed tears.”

Crowley popped up. “I was _ not _ crying!”

“How would you know? You can’t even remember the songs you sang.”

“I don’t — I didn’t — “ Crowley spluttered. ”Nanny didn’t cry, not back then!”

“If you were following my narrative, you’ll notice that I did not actually say that you were crying. In fact, my precise words were _ glimmering with unshed tears,” _repeated Aziraphale, emphasizing each word with a crinkle of his nose. “I said you were about to cry.”

“I was n — Okay, maybe I was.”

“My dear, you definitely were. Where was I? Oh yes. In the figure’s arms was clutched a tiny baby, who filled the night with their thin, piercing, inconsolable wails.”

A shiver wiggled its way down Crowley’s entire body. “Gaaah, that sound. Still haunts me, even now.”

“At that point,” continued Aziraphale, “the door knob bounced off the inner wall, sending the door back in the direction it came from. It slammed in your mother’s face, which was not really the effect she was going for, I should think.”

“I was not,” said Crowley with great dignity, “having a good night, okay?” He addressed Heck. “First of all, the housekeeper had put my notes about sleeping patterns from birth through twelve months in the recycling _ and _shelved all the child behavior books on the Dowlings’ shelves, so I didn’t have any reference material. Second of all, I couldn’t find your squeaky snake, which was the only thing that reliably made you shut up. Third of all, you’d puked up half of what I fed you, pissed out the other half, and then started sobbing loud enough to summon hellhounds. Not only did I have no idea what was wrong, but you completely trashed a pair of my gloves. We won’t even talk about how hard it is to get the smell of baby piss out of a corset, okay?”

“Wouldn’t you want to wear something more washable than a corset if you know a kid might throw up on you?” Heck wondered.

“You have to understand,” said Aziraphale to Heck, “that we were both rather sleep-deprived during your first few months. Inadvisable decisions were made.”

“Like taking the kid for a ride in _ my _ car _ without _ a car seat while messing around with the stereo to see if you could find a _ soothing _ Queen song?” Crowley pointed at Aziraphale. “That was all you, Francissssss!”

“It made sense at the time!” protested Aziraphale. “I knew that you always regained your composure in the Bentley while playing Queen — “

“Because it’s _ my _ car, and I _ like _ Queen!”

“And I had read over your shoulder in one of your books that babies liked gliding, rocking motions — “

“In swings! Or people’s arms! Not rocketing down the back roads of Tadfield at a hundred kilometers an hour in the middle of the night _ without a car seat!” _

“She was in no danger! I’m an angel! I have miraculous powers! Also...you have to admit — that was how we figured out the surefire way to send her to sleep.”

“What was that?” Heck asked.

“Queen, of course!” crowed Crowley. “Well, one Queen song.” He sang in a quiet, bouncing way that Heck could imagine was quite soothing to her when she was little:

_ “If every leaf on every tree _ _  
_ _ Could tell a story, that would be _ _  
_ _ A miracle _ _  
_ _ If every child on every street _ _  
_ _ Had clothes to wear and food to eat, _   
It’s a miracle!”

“Really?” said Heck. “You sang that? That’s a very...undemonic song.” She quoted some lyrics: _ “The wonders of this world go on: / The hanging gardens of Babylon, / Captain Cook, Cain and Abel… _ It’s about all the amazing things people do...well, except for Captain Cook. Okay, so it’s about the beautiful _ and _terrible things that humans accomplish.”

“Exactly!” Crowley cried, waving his arms and nearly clipping Aziraphale on the ear. “It’s humanist and therefore awesome.”

“Nanny had her own version of that verse,” interjected Aziraphale. He sang:

_ “The wonders of this world go on _ _  
_ _ The greatest one is my hellspawn _ _  
_ _ She’s a miracle, it’s true _   
One day she’ll lord it over you…”

“Awwww! You wrote songs for me! Mom!” Heck squealed.

“You might not be so flattered if you heard her first efforts.” Aziraphale chuckled. He sang: _ “Little brat, go the fuck to sleep — “ _

“Excuse me — gotta subdue the spouse.” Crowley jumped on Aziraphale and tried to cover his mouth.

_ “Fucking shut up,” _ Aziraphale crooned tenderly, undaunted. With a light, casual maneuver of his fat, graceful bulk, he moved so that he was sitting on Crowley. _ “If you keep / Fucking screaming — “ _

“I’m gonna make a pillow from your wing feathers!” Crowley yelled, somewhat muffled.

_ “I’m gonna cry / And then pass out and fucking die,” _ Aziraphale finished. He flicked imaginary tears from his eyes. “Touching, isn’t it? The epitome of motherly love.” Heck requested that he sing it through without interruption, so he did:

_ “Little brat, go the fuck to sleep. _ _  
_ _ Fucking shut up! If you keep _ _  
_ _ Fucking screaming, I’m gonna cry _   
And then pass out and fucking die.”

Heck snickered. “So this was _ before _ Nanny instituted her no-swearing policy, I take it?”

“Oh, that wasn’t her.” Crowley shook his head. “That was all me, too exhausted to keep the ol’ genderfluids from sloshing around a bit because _ someone _ was screaming her head off.” He smirked. “There was another I sang to you once. It had less swearing, but more nastiness. What was it?” He snapped his fingers: “Ah hah! I’ve got it.” To the same tune as the previous verse, he sneered/sang, coiling around Aziraphale: _ “Go to sleep; dream of pain, / Doom and darkness, blood and brains — “ _ After an intense struggle, he now perched on Aziraphale’s pelvis. He lunged for his ineffable spouse’s face.

“Get thee behind me, fiend!” Aziraphale tossed a throw pillow at Crowley. He missed (probably on purpose).

“Oh! I remember that one,” Heck exclaimed. _ “Sleep so sweet, my pride and joy / You will rule when Earth’s destroyed.” _

“Really? Even though I only sang it to you once?” Crowley swiveled toward Heck and looked over his shades at her. “Waaaaugh!” he screeched. Aziraphale ambushed him, flipped him over onto his front, and lay bodily along his back. “Grrrmph,” said Crowley, face half mashed into the couch cushion. “One of these days, angel… A pillow, I tell you! A pillow!” He shook a fist.

“Oh, be quiet.” Aziraphale opened his book again, flat on the back of Crowley’s head, and began reading, mostly for show.

“Hey, you’re messing up my hair! Ugh.” Crowley went limp under Aziraphale. He turned his head toward Heck. Sighing voluminously, he blew a loose lock of hair from his face. “I used to be someone, child,” he told her lugubriously. “Serpent of Subversion, planner of the hellish M25, governess of the Antichrist and all. Now look at what I’m reduced to! Angel furniture!” 

“You’re not doing a very good job of it,” Aziraphale noted. “You’re wiggling too much.”

“Yeah, you look really sad about your current state,” Heck said.

“I’m crying buckets. The couch cushion is just absorbing my tears.”

“Why did you only sing that _ doom and darkness _ one once?” Heck asked.

“Hah!” Crowley laughed hard enough to almost buck Aziraphale off. “Because you kept interrupting. And I quote: _ Why do I have to dream of pain?” _ He pushed his voice upward in decent imitation of a nosy little kid’s insistent run-on questions: _ “What if I don’t wanna? Is is a stub-your-toe kind of pain or a break-your-arm kind of pain? Did you know that _ doom and darkness _ is onomatopoeia? No...wait...it’s alliteration. And darkness isn’t doom, but nighttime and snuggles and secrets and space and the color of Nanny’s lipstick.” _

“Awwwww, Nanny’s little Gothling strikes again. I really said that?”

“You really did, child — and a whole lot more beside. _And did you know that there were animals with all colors of blood: not just red, but orange and yellow and blue and purple? Isn’t that cool?_ _I want a Pride shirt with a rainbow on it made of animal blood. Wouldn’t that be badass? _And on and on and on. You really hated the last line. _Nanny, that makes no sense. If Earth’s destroyed, then we’ll all be dead. There wouldn’t be anything for me to rule._ Then, of course, I tried to explain the whole Antichrist scenario, but you thought it was ridiculous because, at that time, you didn’t believe in either God or the Devil.”

“Still don’t,” said Heck, folding her arms.

“And I still don’t get that.” Crowley shook his head. “You know _ we’re _ real.” He pointed between himself and Aziraphale. “You know the Apocawhoops was real. Your extended family is made of people who prevented it, including the actual Antichrist. And you know people, including your parents, who’ve had quite the chats with both God and the Devil. But you’re still like, _ Eh, not real.” _

“No, it’s like I keep telling you — I acknowledge the reality of God and the Devil,” said Heck simply. “As a Wiccan and a witch, however, I just refuse to believe in them. Believing in them gives them power, and they don’t need any more power. Christian supremacy is already fucking up the world enough; we don’t need any help from Christian gods who think that they’re omniscient and omnipotent just because lots of people think they are. If you really need some gods, there are much better choices.”

“Mmmph,” said Crowley meditatively from beneath his spouse. “I mean, yeah. True.”


	3. Nanny the Terrifyingly Obnoxious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale sits on Crowley. Not Nanny, though! Heck learns some startling news about how her Hellmom feels and what she does whenever she sees her daughter.

“Angeldad, how long are you going to sit on Mom?” Heck ventured a moment later.

“Until I feel like getting up,” said Aziraphale airily.

“Is that safe?”

“Oh! Sure! Breathing is for losers anyway,” said Crowley, wheezing dramatically.

“Are you implying that I’m fat?” said Aziraphale to Heck. “If so, thank you for the compliment.”

“No, I’m just implying that someone sitting on someone for an extended period of time might cause permanent, um, damage,” Heck explained.

“It’s safe,” said Aziraphale. “We know our limits, sweetheart.”

“Okay! Sorry. It’s just that people — I mean, non-ineffable people — don’t do that sort of thing.”

“Right, because your physical limits are different,” said Aziraphale.

“Besides, I can get him off any time I want,” said Crowley. 

“Bwah hah!” said Heck.

“What? Why are you laughing? I can!”

“Double entendre,” said Heck.

“Everything is a double entendre in English if you say it right,” Crowley pointed out. “Hey, ya wanna defrag that hard drive with me?” he said in a low, propositional voice.

“Not tonight, dear heart. I’m off to the bindery,” answered Aziraphale breezily.

“Oooh, the _ bindery. _ I think you skipped right over double entendres and went directly into kink.”

“How do you make him climb down off you,” Heck asked Crowley, carefully avoiding the phrase _ get off, _ “and go away? Do you dangle a rare book in front of him from a string?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” scoffed Aziraphale. “I would never permit such reckless treatment of any piece of literature.” 

“No, I have two options: the subtle option and the obnoxious option.” Crowley tried to hold up two fingers, but Aziraphale was weighing down his arms. 

“Both of your options are obnoxious, dear heart. It’s just that one of them is slightly less terrifying.”

“Terrifying option, please,” requested Heck.

“Why are you smirking like that?” Crowley asked her.

“Because I know what you’re going to do, and I’m waiting for you to be terrifyingly obnoxious,” said Heck. “It’s fun to watch.”

Crowley lifted an eyebrow in what was supposed to be a superior manner, but just ended up being squashed. “I’m coming for you,” he said to Heck, “after I deal with my ineffable spouse.”

“Oooh, I’m so scared.”

Fold, spin, twist — shiver, shape, and shift. Crowley changed form and gender, and there was Nanny in his place. “You really should be,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. She lowered her voice and said to Aziraphale in a tone that somehow bristled with a thousand quills, _ “Don’t you dare sit on me, angel.” _

There was a sort of _ whumph _ and a confused flutter, as if a very large bird had just been ambushed. The next thing Heck knew, her Hellmom was at one end of the couch, in her usual clothes, trying to see the back of her head with the help of a compact mirror. At the other end, book somewhat rumpled in his lap, Aziraphale was trying to straighten his bow tie. A white underfeather was stuck in his hair. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” he muttered. “Now I have to retie my tie.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t put your books on my head, dear heart,” rejoined Nanny coolly. “Now I have to redo my hair.”

“Nannyyyyyyyyyy!” Heck’s voice went up on the last syllable, like it always did. “Hi!” She jumped toward her Hellmom and hugged her. “Wait… Was that your magic? You didn’t snap your fingers.”

“No, it wasn’t magic. Aziraphale just suddenly rediscovered the power of flight,” said Nanny, smiling evilly, “as well as the wisdom of not bodily flattening on a lady of my inimitable qualities. You know — it’s really not necessary to squeal at that particular frequency every time I appear.”

“Hypocrite,” said Aziraphale. “You squeal like that every time you see Heck.”

“I do not. My voice doesn’t even go up that high.”

“Internally you squeal like that,” clarified Aziraphale. “Maybe not at that pitch, but definitely with that volume and enthusiasm and desire to catapult yourself into Heck’s arms.”

“No, I — Wait — How do you — ?” Apparently Aziraphale had hit on the truth because now Nanny just stared at him, her mouth slightly open.

Aziraphale moved down the couch and covered Nanny’s hands with his own. “I can sense love, dear heart. I know what you would like to do out of the strength of your affection for our daughter, even if you yourself don’t.”

“Oh…” Turning very red, Nanny pulled her gloved hands from Aziraphale’s and pressed them tightly together in her lap. She scooted down the couch, putting a cushion of distance between her and her ineffable spouse.

Heck took advantage of the space between Nanny and Aziraphale to whisper to the latter: “So, just to confirm, Nanny does basically what I do whenever I see her? She goes, _ Eeeeeeeeeee! _ and wants to give me a big, big hug? She just does it inside, though, since she’s kind of embarrassed?”

“Yes,” said Aziraphale softly and fondly. “That’s exactly what she does. She springs up, fully alert, instantly attentive, even if you can’t see her do so. That’s why you can summon her, I think — I mean, her specifically — because you’ve always had that strong connection.”

“I’ll thank you not to talk about me behind my back!” Nanny called over her shoulder.

“Oh. Sorry,” Heck apologized. Then, a minute later, she turned to face Nanny. “Um...Mom? Nanny?” She touched her on the shoulder. “Really? You love me like _ that?” _

Nanny turned around toward Heck, still with her hands together in her lap. “I do,” she said in a lower voice than usual. “And please don’t ask me why I’m embarrassed because I don’t think even I know all the reasons.”

“And that’s what you feel whenever I call you?”

“Yes, because your childhood and my motherhood — they were acts of co-creation.” Nanny knit her fingers together, one hand perpendicular to the other, so that her fingertips looked like the ends of notched logs for cabin walls. “I was making you into my child at the same time you were making me into your mother.”

“But it wasn’t just me!” Heck pointed out. “You were making yourself into my mother too — volunteering and reading and studying and practicing and learning how not to freak out.”

“And how not to drop babies out the window,” Aziraphale added.

“I never do that myself anymore.” Nanny lifted her chin. “Ever since then I have always used a trebuchet of the appropriate strength.” When Heck and Aziraphale laughed, Nanny smiled, finally unclamping her hands. She tapped Heck on the tip of her nose. “And you, hellspawn, were creating yourself too at the same time, learning how to be my daughter. You chose your own name because it was linked to the one I gave you. You decided to become my daughter as much as I decided to become your mother.”

“Yeah,” said Heck with a warm smile. She hugged Nanny and leaned her head on her shoulder. "I, uh...I wish you didn’t feel so embarrassed about being so excited and wanting to hug me.” 

“It’s not about hugging you in general — “

“I know. It’s about when you first see someone. But...um...I always wanted someone to be that excited every time they saw me.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I saw how Harriet acted when she was going to her parents’ in New York...or how excited Thaddeus J. Asshole was whenever he went on one of his stinking fishing trips. I wished that someone would think about me that way.”

“You wouldn’t have been embarrassed?” As Nanny met Heck’s eyes over the tops of her glasses, her snaky pupils widened. She looked almost human, despite her golden irises. “I never wanted to embarrass you.”

“I love violently enthusiastic greetings, Mom. That would never embarrass me.”

“I think, my dear lady,” said Aziraphale, “that you may be imputing your own chagrin to our daughter instead of truly detecting her feelings.”

“Oh.” Nanny crinkled her eyebrows. “Am I?” she said to Heck, who told her that she kind of was. “Well then...let me think about it tonight, child. I can’t promise you anything, but I should be able to change a thing or two.”

“Okay, sure — yaaaaah!” Heck’s sentence devolved into a yawn.

“I heard that! Spit-spot to bed with you.” Nanny snapped her fingers and pointed down the hall.

“I’ll spit on _ your _ spot,” Heck threatened. “You should go to sleep too. The bags under your eyes look awful.”

“Everyone should go to bed,” cut in Aziraphale, “and then I can get some reading done.”

Heck threw two pillows at her Angeldad — one for her, one on behalf of her Hellmom.


	4. Nanny the Speechless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heck looks for her antidepressants. Crowley helps her find them. Then Heck calls Nanny and turns her Hellmom into a crying incoherent wreck. But she's happy -- really!

“Ugh...I know I put it in here somewhere.” The next morning Heck dug in her purse for her antidepressants. While Crowley, a  _ Doctor Who  _ dork, called it her  _ personal TARDIS _ because, like the Doctor’s spaceship, it was bigger on the inside, she preferred to think of it as her transdimensional bag. Most of it was the same size inside as it was outside, but there were some interior zippered pockets that extended into much greater storage. Had she packed her pills in one of them by accident?

Five minutes of excavation yielded nothing. Heck, her various cosmetics and accessories and tools and gadgets and weapons arrayed about her on her bed, tilted back her head. “Mom! Dad! If you’re free, I could use a little miracle or hellicle with my happy pills, please.”

“Heyyyyyy!” Crowley slid into Heck’s room suavely and tripped on the door jamb unsuavely. “Blessit!” He barked his shin on the door frame. “Limbs! How do you deal with four of these buggers?” He shook his arms like noodles. “I get along fine without any. Anyway, what are you looking for?”

“Sertraline and bupropion. Little orange semi-translucent prescription bottles about this big.” Heck indicated the height between thumb and forefinger.

“Abracadabra, alaka-blam!” Wiggling his hands over Heck’s stuff, Crowley intoned some totally useless magical words. Everything jumped into the air, maybe forty centimeters off the bed. “Sertraline!” He held up his right hand level with his ear and snapped his fingers. A small orange bottle flew from the airborne stuff smack into his right hand. “Bupropion!” With a snap from his left hand, another prescription bottle landed there. “Ah hah!” He exhibited them to her like prizes he had just won, then laughed at her wide-eyed expression. “That never gets old. Here ya are.” Pitching the bottles to her underhand, he snapped his fingers again and returned all her belongings to their appropriate compartments.

“Thanks so much!” Heck shook out one pill of each, then went to the bathroom for some water to swallow them down with.

When Heck returned to her room, Crowley was blowing through his teeth and clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth nervously. “Hey, um, child?”

“Yeah?”

“I was kind of hoping that you could help me with something. Maybe?” He jammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, which, being made for women, barely opened two fingers’ worth.

“Sure. What is it?”

“Um, call me?” The double tips of his forked tongue traced the outline of his lips. His ears turned pink as he blushed.

“Oh, did you lose your phone again? You know — if your trouser pockets were bigger, it wouldn’t fall out all the time.”

“I know. I know. But no, it’s not like that, not a phone call. It’s like a — “ Crowley gestured as if pulling a fountain of water up from his diaphragm, through his chest, and out his mouth, where it would run in a liquid flow of new sounds. “A calling up, a calling out. A call — you know!” He shook his hands as if shaking the imaginary water from them. “That call thing that witches do.”

“A summons? An invocation?”

Crowley lifted himself up on his toes. “Yes! Yes! Invoke me.”

“But you’re already here.”

“I mean...Nanny. Sorry.”

“Oh shit — are your genderfluids stuck again? Awwww, Mom.” Heck bounced up from the mattress and hugged him. Her Hellmom exercised mostly conscious control over his various genders/forms, but sometimes emotional upset either made him cycle rapidly or stay in one longer than usual. “Is it because I’m going away?”

“No, no, no.” Crowley hugged her back as he always did — with a tight, constrictive grip. “My genderfluids are unstucky. I mean — not sticky. I mean — not stuck. I just — I think — I think sometimes it’s not my genderfluids that are stuck.” 

“Oh? What do you mean?” Heck pulled back from him and plunked down on her bed again.

“Well, last night I was thinking. Obviously I want to jump up and down and scream whenever I see you, so why don’t I? What’s stuck? What needs to be unstuck? I was just hoping that you could call me and kind of surprise me, and then maybe I could just sort of — you know — do it.” He waved his hands all around.

“Uhhh, do what?”

“Get unstuck.”

“I’m, um, not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here.”

“It’s okay. I’m trying to jump up and down and scream. But just call me.” He clicked his tongue faster. “Just call me! I wanna see if I can do it.”

“Ummmm, okay. It’s just gonna be really weird with you standing right here, though. I’m gonna close my eyes, if that’s okay.” Heck did so. “Hey...um...Mom? Nanny? I don’t know quite how to do this with you right in front of me, but…”

Heck stopped. She sighed. With her outward eyes closed, she opened her inward eyes. She thought of going and staying, flying and landing. She thought of everything her mother did for her and everything she ever felt for her. Words filled her up inside like love, and then, when she knew what patterns to arrange them in, she sang them out:

“Come out; come up; come here; come back. 

I need to leave, but I need to say goodbye to you first.

Come so that I can go. Return so that I can leave. 

Ground me so that I can rise. Remain so that I can fly. 

Be my wings so that I can stay earthbound. Be my earth so that I can soar.”

The lines wanted to rhyme then, so she rhymed them: 

“Be the strength of my shadow and the power of my light.

Be the harshness of daytime and the softness of night. 

“Be thou the candle that shines in my dark.

For the light within me, be thou the spark. 

“For the darkness within me, be beginning and end.

For the whole of my life, be my mother and friend.”

“Yes.  _ Yes.  _ YES!” said Nanny, her voice mounting with each word. Heck opened her eyes, and there she was, Nanny, her Hellmom, in her sensible black blouse with the high neck and her sensible black pencil skirt that went down below the knee and her sensible black driving gloves and her sensibly subdued hair in a wave — and she couldn’t say a sensible word. “I — You — Why — ? How do you make it ssssso right?” she whispered, her lips shaking so hard that she almost couldn’t shape the words. “How do you make it sssso good? You jusssst sssspeak — and I — and we — I can’t — It’s jusssst — It’s jusssst — It’s jusssst — “

“Are you all right?” Heck stepped closer to Nanny.

“Yes! I jusssst — I wanted — Oh sssssilly me!” She raised her head and flashed a quick smile. “I thought — if you called — “

“You thought that, if I summoned you, you’d come,” Heck finished, stepping closer. “And you were right. That wasn’t silly.”

“But I might — all that — all that — internal ssssquealing — “ Nanny made those motions again like she was pulling a fountain up from within her. She searched Heck’s face, her brows creasing, as she tried to communicate something that her words wouldn’t let her. “Maybe I could — but I’m just too — just too — “ With a descending three-breath sigh, she bent over and cried, then came up again: “Sobbing! Sobbing! Why? Why — sobbing?”

“Well, ‘cause goodbyes are hard. It’s okay to cry,” said Heck, so gently that she wanted to cry herself.

“But I — words — I — with the words — I should — “ Nanny objected. She closed her hands as if to grasp what she wanted to say, then released her fingers as the words melted between them. “Ssssobbing! Just — just sssssobbing! No squealing, no jumping, just — this.” Her voice nearly burned out, and she regarded herself as if she were covered in puke. “Jusssst thissss… I didn’t — I don’t — I can’t — “ She shook her head.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re the one who taught me it was okay to cry — remember?”

“No — but — I — I’m a wreck! A messsss! I can’t — My eyes — My hair — My facccce — blotchy — sssssniffly — Too much! Not me!” She covered her face with her handkerchief, as if she wanted to disappear beneath it.

“Yeah, people tend to look messy when they cry. But it’s okay to cry! It’s still part of you, even though you look and feel like a mess. It’s okay to be a mess sometimes!”

Lowering her head and closing her eyes, Nanny breathed in and out, loudly, deliberately, for a minute. She took off her glasses, dabbed her face with her handkerchief, and fixed Heck with eyes that were almost painfully bright. “I asked you to invoke me, child,” she said, speaking each word as carefully as if picking her way through jagged stones, “because I thought that you might be able to surprise me and thus elicit the jumping around and squealing, which, I assure you, occurs internally every time I see you. I wanted to — you know — be as happy to see you as you always are to see me.” She attempted a smile, but her mouth shook so hard that the smile fell from it. “But your invocation touched me very deeply, so now, instead of jumping around, I’m sniveling and melting. I — “ Nanny burst into a torrent of fresh tears.

“Uh, are you happy? Or sad? Or confused? Or ambivalent? Or what?” Heck asked.

“Oh, [sniff] child [sniff]! Can’t [sniff] you [sniff] tell [sniff]?” The sniffs did very little to check Nanny’s tears. Her shoulders were still shaking. “You — with the right words — so good and right — “

“Not really. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Euphoric [sniff], exultant [sniff], rapturous [sniff]!” Nanny, with her hair unraveling from its curl and her makeup clouding all around her eyes, smiled at Heck. It was a soggy, rumpled smile, but it was still golden and true. 

“Oh! Oh good. I thought so, but I wasn’t sure.” Heck let out a sigh and smiled herself.

“Your words — “ said Nanny. More breathing, more sniffling, more dabbing. As she did so, she placed all the pieces of her scattered thoughts into the correct order. After a minute, she regained her old fluency. “Your words — they form long crystal chains that twine through the emptiest space, down into the deepest places, where they lodge their hooks in my brain, my eyes, my heart. And then my brain burns with the thought of you, my eyes with the sight of you, my heart with the love of you. And then, when that fire has died away, you have pulled me back to where I ought to be, bound to you with those glass links of love and darkness and logic.” 

“Oh!” said Heck. “Damn. Wow. I never really realized that that’s what calling you meant. But...that’s what it means.” She gulped. She knew what that calling felt like — those hooks, that fire. She felt that when Nanny said,  _ Hello, child. _ If her Hellmom ever called her, then she would go to where she was without question.

“I’m here and good and right,” said Nanny with a humorous smile, “and you’re my shadow and my light. — Oh! Well, will you look at that? You’ve got  _ me  _ rhyming too now. Anyway, please don’t ask me what any of that means because I hardly know myself, only that it’s...true and accurate...somehow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is somehow.” Heck smiled so as not to laugh and then cry.

They hugged for a while. Eventually Nanny confessed, “I...I...wanted to give you a going-away present.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“I wanted to… You said that you always wanted someone to love you like that, so...I…” She chuckled, a sound broken by leftover tears. “Oh my, look at me. Now I can’t even finish my sentences. —So I thought I’d give you what you wanted.”

Heck went back in for part two of the hug. “I just...I wanted to say goodbye to you —  _ you, _ Nanny. I got what I wanted.”

“With bonus wailing, blubbering, and snot production. I’ve always been horrible with goodbyes, particularly with you, and I’m sure you wanted none of that.” Nanny shook her head.

Sometimes, Heck thought, her Hellmom just missed the point completely. “Mom! Nanny! Listen to me, okay? You know what I’ve always wanted? I’ve wanted to be someone that you were comfortable enough to be yourself around. As much as the three of us tell each other,  _ Oh, Nanny knows best, and Nanny always knows what to do and say, _ we all know it’s not really true.”

Nanny gave a little laugh. “I’ve certainly invested a lot of time and energy into cultivating that impression.”

“Even when I was little, though,” said Heck, shaking her head, “I knew that you had to be angry and sad and excited like everyone else, even if you didn’t show it. I knew that there had to be times where you cried and broke off all your sentences just like Crowley because, you know, you  _ are _ him.” 

“You — “ said Nanny. “You — You — “ She closed her eyes and tears welled up from under the lids. 

“And I knew that you must let Aziraphale see that side of you, and I just hoped that you would trust me enough to let me see that aspect of you too. And you did. I got what I wanted. I’m even a little less freaked out about moving to a different continent and starting all over again,” Heck confessed, “because I know that, somewhere out there, I’ve got people who trust me like you and Aziraphale do.”

Nanny started crying again and sniffling. “I’m ruining my makeup. Well [sniff]...” She wiped her face with her handkerchief. Then she sprang to Heck and hugged her. “Of course I trust you. Oh, I love you so very much, child. I’m glad that you’ve gotten what you wanted because so have I.” She kissed Heck on the cheek.

“What did you want?”

“I wanted a family of my own with people who accepted me for what I was, and that’s — that’s what I have.” Wrapping her arms around her daughter, Nanny cried quietly, but this time without revulsion. They were tears of relief, of gladness. They were tears of peace.


End file.
